Review: Bottomcutter/Topcutter by Bale Breaker Brewing Company

Bale Breaker Brewing Company is a family-owned brewery located in the Yakima Valley. Backed by four generations of hop farming experience, Bale Breaker started in 2013, and has grown to become the fifth largest independent craft brewery in Washington.

Topcutter

Pours a beautiful golden-amber color, with dense off-white head. Nose was earthy, like fresh-harvested hops with an equally earthy maltiness. Citrus flavors follow as well, mostly orange alongside a few other tropical fruits.

The sweetness in the taste is a bit stronger than the nose but it never gets in the way of the citrus, pine and floral hops. Grapefruits, oranges, bitter clementine peels and stone fruits combine with hints of pale barley mash, bready yeast and a moderate sweetness.

The carbonation is light but playful, the beer itself medium-bodied and smooth, finishing dry on the piney and citrus notes. Tasty and incredibly easy to drink at near 7% ABV.

Bottomcutter

A slightly cloudy deep gold pour with pillowing white froth on top that takes a while to recede.

The nose is dank and weedy with musty earthiness to start, though you can easily tell the presence of tropical fruits, oranges, grapefruits, pineapples, mangoes and caramelt malts, with a touch of sweet pine wood behind it all.

The fruit flavors that you can tell up front are the citrus ones from the nose, with sweetness well in the background of this beer, with a dank and bitter back end, grass and pine shining through.

This one seemed a bit more carbonated than the bottomcutter, maybe a touch too much – but the medium body is perfect for this beer.

Overall, it combines some Northeast IPA elements with the trademark West Coast bitterness, blending those two hop worlds into one.

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